"The last time Haiyang went to talk to Dong Xiaoqing, she removed an express delivery package from the package box at her door," said Tao Ran. "The label was very clear. You can see through the camera that Dong Qian had sent it to himself."
Luo Wenzhou looked at Fei Du. If Fei Du's expression had been somewhat indolent before, now he was thoroughly awake, his gaze sharpening as it fixed on the phone set to speaker.
Luo Wenzhou said, "But if I recall correctly, the last time Xiao Haiyang went to the Dong house was a good few days before Zhou Huaijin was attacked. Why didn't the person who ran Dong Xiaoqing over do anything then?"
"Because during that time there were always reporters hanging around her house, and she was hiding inside, not coming out. It would have been too risky to break in to kill her, and furthermore no one could be sure what Dong Qian had actually sent home. If Dong Qian had just sent some irrelevant stuff, they'd only be putting us on the alert if they acted rashly."
Luo Wenzhou thought of something and dully gave an affirmative. "Go on."
"Three days later, Dong Xiaoqing went out. First she stopped in at a flower shop to buy fresh flowers, then she got on a bus and went to Heng'ai Hospital. No one knew there was a knife hidden in her bag. At the time, the girl just seemed like the harmless and innocent relative of the responsible driver, who'd felt guilty and gone to pay a visit to the victim's relatives. I think the person following her also hadn't thought that she had it in her to go stab someone in public."
Having heard this much, Luo Wenzhou was silent for awhile. Then he said, "After Dong Xiaoqing received the package Dong Qian sent home, she spent three days by herself, and in the end still chose to get revenge."
A person could do anything on impulse, but an impulse could only last so long. The greatest misfortune couldn't keep a person impulsive for three days. During those three days, what had Dong Xiaoqing done while she'd been on her own?
Perhaps she had been deliberating some way to judge the authenticity of the information in the package, or perhaps she had been plotting how to retaliate against the Zhou family.
She'd had Xiao Haiyang's contact information, and she could also have called 110 at any time.
Had she hesitated?
Had there been a moment when she'd picked up the phone and dialed a number, thinking of handing over everything she had to the police and waiting for society to give her an outcome—whether her father was a victim or a murderer?
With some struggle, Fei Du bent his arm with the IV in it, using his knuckles to rhythmically tap against the railing of the hospital bed. Luo Wenzhou grabbed his fingers.
"Don't fool around," Luo Wenzhou said quietly. "I'm not a spy. I don't have a Morse code interpretation function."
Tao Ran took a moment to realize who he was talking to, then hurriedly asked, "Am I on speaker? I thought there was an echo.—Is Fei Du there? Fei Du, are you awake? How are you feeling today? When we came to see you the day before yesterday you still weren't very clear-headed. Did you see the fruit I brought you? Xiao Qiao brought you a bear, too."
Most of the fruit had already gone into that greedy-guts Luo Wenzhou's belly, and the bear's head had been wrapped up in the bag the fruit had come in by the fidgety Luo Wenzhou, posed pressed into a corner with two paws up, a robber bear caught by the police after having gotten through robbing a bank, the display rather stylish.
Tao Ran said, "You really gave us a scare that day, you have no idea. Lao Luo even…"
Luo Wenzhou's reaction was quick as a flash of lightning. Hearing his tone, he had a premonition of what Big-mouthed Tao was going to say and interrupted him at once. "He can't talk yet, and he can't eat, the fruit all went as tribute to me.—Enough, no more nonsense, get back to business. What's the basis for your suppositions? Dong Xiaoqing's house isn't in some backwater. If someone started following her when she went out that day, then why didn't we spot it?"
The dutiful Comrade Tao Ran's attention seemed to be like a compass needle. While it could sometimes be perturbed, with a light adjustment, it would always return on its own to his work.
As soon as Luo Wenzhou interrupted, he immediately forgot what he'd been about to spill, hurriedly getting back to business. "Because at first the focus of the investigation was wrong.—There are about a dozen surveillance cameras along the stretch of road Dong Xiaoqing took from going out to the flower shop. Eight of them caught her. Afterwards, she got on a bus fifty meters away from the flower shop, heading towards Heng'ai Hospital.—At the time, we focused on those eight cameras, the passengers who got on at the bus at the same stop as her, and the cars following the bus. We came up empty."
Luo Wenzhou frowned, now and then rubbing the dry, cold interstices of Fei Du's fingers.
"Later, we were gathering clues around the flower shop and looking at the civilian security cameras. The second time around, we found a biker."
Luo Wenzhou hadn't heard clearly. "A biker? You mean one of those riding a bike all wrapped up, without a trace of skin showing?"
"Right. This biker was caught by a security camera at the side door of a bookstore. His face was tightly wrapped up, and he was wearing sunglasses. This was less than a hundred meters from the bus stop where Dong Xiaoqing was waiting for the bus. Then the person took a shortcut to the next stop along the route Dong Xiaoqing's bus was taking, stayed on for two stops and then got off again. He didn't have any contact with Dong Xiaoqing in the interim, so we didn't notice him at first."
"Could it be a coincidence?" Luo Wenzhou said. "This person may not have wanted to take the bus originally and just got tired of riding. I don't think we can suspect someone just for wanting to avoid a sunburn?"
"It's not coincidence." Tao Ran said very definitely. "That stolen car that ran over Dong Xiaoqing joined up with the bus Dong Xiaoqing was on between the stop he got off at and the next one. After we discovered this issue, we went back to search the cameras around Dong Xiaoqing's house—there were three cameras that caught him. We drew his approximate path and found that he'd been practically following Dong Xiaoqing. His was riding faster than she was walking, and he purposefully went by quite a few side roads. It's unrealistic to try to avoid all the security cameras, but he very carefully avoided the ones that could have caught Dong Xiaoqing."
The follower hadn't appeared on the same cameras as Dong Xiaoqing and had avoided getting on or off the bus at the same stops as her, keeping the danger of being noticed by the police to a minimum. And even if his luck had been bad and the police had noticed him, the biker's impenetrable get-up would make him difficult to recognize.
This person was a professional, cautious, well-trained in anti-reconnaissance measures—
"The biker was responsible for following her the first half of the way, and the killer in the stolen car for the back half. If Dong Xiaoqing had calmly gone and delivered the flowers and left, the stolen car would have been abandoned before the owner could report it. They didn't expect that she would try to stab Zhou Huaijin."
If Zheng Kaifeng had purposefully adopted Zhou Huaijin's identity in his dealings with Dong Qian, then, as soon as he found out that Dong Xiaoqing had attacked Zhou Huaijin, he would have understood that Dong Xiaoqing definitely knew something, and there must have been problem with the package Dong Qian had sent her, and thereupon determined to silence her.
"Key evidence." Luo Wenzhou sighed. "Tao Ran, it's not enough to put together a sequence, we need key evidence."
"That's hard." Tao Ran sounded rather weary. "Zheng Kaifeng's been burnt to a paste. All the indications we have now can only prove that Zheng Kaifeng, Yang Bo, and those others had some connection to this series of cases.—The Zhou Clan's headquarters are abroad. It's not our territory, we can't investigate just like that. If we hadn't caught Zheng Kaifeng's thugs, and if the people at the illegal private bank Zheng Kaifeng used to move the money hadn't fled, we may not even have found out about the transaction between Dong Qian and Zheng Kaifeng."
"Got it," said Luo Wenzhou. "I appreciate all your hard work these last few days."
Just then, Fei Du struggled lightly, pulling his hand out of Luo Wenzhou's, rather awkwardly writing on his palm, "In a while…"
Before he'd finished writing the second half of the last character, Luo Wenzhou understood what he meant and gripped his fingers again. He said a few words to Tao Ran before hanging up, then gently tapped Fei Du's thigh. "You're only an auditor. Why do you always want to state your views? If you dare knock that IV out, I'll hit you."
With the only part of him he could use to express an opinion held by Luo Wenzhou, Fei Du could only look at him helplessly.
"In a while," said Luo Wenzhou. "I know. Although Zheng Kaifeng is dead, in a case spanning so many years, involving so much resentment and animosity, it wouldn't seem very natural if the evidence turned up too close together, right?"
Fei Du blinked at him.
"I have a feeling," Luo Wenzhou said suddenly, "that you have a deeper understanding of this case than we do."
Fei Du quietly returned his gaze.
Luo Wenzhou squeezed his fingers. "Last time you made me exchange personal business for information. What are you going to make me exchange next time?"
Fei Du pressed on his palm.
Luo Wenzhou let go slightly, letting him write.
Perhaps on purpose, each stroke Fei Du wrote was drawn out very long. His well-cared-for nails were rounded and neat, sweeping over the lines of Luo Wenzhou's palm.
"'Put,'" Luo Wenzhou read out the first character he wrote. "What should I put where for you?"
Fei Du wrote another character on his palm.
Luo Wenzhou stared at his palm for a good while as if he couldn't read, his eyebrows very expressively rising and falling for a moment. Then he snorted a laugh and shook his head, poking Fei Du's face. "Dream on, darling."
Fei Du looked at him with a smile that wasn't quite a smile.
Luo Wenzhou put his hands on the sides of his pillow, bent down and looked at him, then very carefully, avoiding his injured shoulder, lowered his head and gently touched his lips. "It really is time for you to be dreaming. Go to sleep, I'll come have dinner with you when you wake up."
Then he straightened Fei Du's covers, turned off the TV, and pulled the curtains shut. He walked out, said a few words to the nurse's aide waiting at the door, and slowly left, leaning on his crutch.
In consideration of Fei Du's mental state, the times Luo Wenzhou came to "harass" him every day were fixed to help him establish a clear regimen and save him from being unable to distinguish the passage of time. After a few days of this, Fei Du nearly had a conditioned response to him. As soon as he saw Luo Wenzhou shut the curtains and leave, he'd automatically feel a heavy sleepiness. But perhaps because he'd gotten worked up over Tao Ran's phone call, Fei Du suddenly couldn't sleep.
Zheng Kaifeng's cold gaze, Yang Bo's panic-stricken face, Zhou Huaijin's reddened eyes, Zhou Huaixin covered in blood… All of them spun around before his eyes.
He watched attentively as Luo Wenzhou's back disappeared at a corner. The nurse's aide came in to adjust his IV drip.
Fei Du let out a breath, feeling rather cold.
Another half a month later, Luo Wenzhou resumed his post and went to the City Bureau to report. The day after he once again took control of the Zhou family case, someone called the police hotline to report a crime—